


Three Games

by gracca_amorosa



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: F/M, Mutual Pining, beth tops borgov thats it thats the tag, i cannot deal with these two, im going to lose my mind, last chapter is explicit go have fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:48:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27567019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracca_amorosa/pseuds/gracca_amorosa
Summary: Her realization came in an elevator. She was tucked into a corner when Borgov and four others boarded, and she tried to make herself small, unimportant, trying to look away but not quite managing. But she heard them talking. Understood what they were saying, thank god for her Russian lessons. The two men flanking him listed her weaknesses with such a casual air that she thought she was going to die right there: she was a drunk, she was angry, she’s just a woman-But Borgov cut them off."She’s an orphan. A survivor. She’s like us - losing is not an option for her. Otherwise, what would her life be?”
Relationships: Vasily Borgov/Beth Harmon
Comments: 145
Kudos: 549





	1. Mexico City

BETH

The first time Beth was in Borgov’s orbit was Mexico City, but that’s not where it all began. She read about him in magazines, learned Russian - for him. Kept a picture she cut out of Chess Review in her wallet. Whenever she felt herself slipping, either drugs or drink or sloppy moves, she slid his photo out and looked at the enemy, screamed at herself, until the image was creased so badly it was flaking. She kept it next to a picture of her birth mother.

Being in Mexico City was like walking a tightrope, or like she was grabbing onto an electric fence with no idea of when it might go off. Her mother had said  _ there’s more to life than chess _ , and when she finally ventured out of her room, on the edge of being too drunk but good enough to know just where her limits are, she saw him - Borgov, wife and child, two men she learned later were KGB - at Chapultepec Park, looking at the gorillas like he wasn’t about to ruin her life. She walked home as quickly as she could, afraid of what she might do if she stayed. Afraid of confronting him there, in front of his wife and kid, afraid of making a fool of herself to this man who she was sure barely saw her as a person, let alone a rival. When she got in she ran herself the hottest bath she could manage and sat in the scalding water until it was cool, trying to think of the game but instead thinking about  _ him _ , about how he leaned over to talk to his son, about how the face that seemed made of stone had at least a hint of life about it. She drank as much water as her body would hold, then collapsed in bed before she could get too sober. She dreamt in Russian.

A couple days later she stopped to watch his match against Bilek to see what he was like in action - cold, calculating, sure of himself and his victory, which he had in short order. Her eyes could not leave his face, as impassive as it was, and she sucked at her cheeks trying to rein in her blazing anger. This man had no soul, she thought to herself, no spirit. And yet it was if she could sense his presence when he was around. Sitting at her table waiting to play the boy, Girev, her head snapped up almost against her will to watch him walk by, watch him not notice her but nod to the boy.

Playing Girev was one of the most frustrating things she had ever done, five hours without winning, ending in an adjournment, and the kid had the audacity to be charming, childlike, when he spoke to her after. Once again she crawled into a bath so hot it made her skin ache, and played the game against Girev, looking for a way to win. In the end, she settled on intimidation, walking around the balcony in the early morning as if she had no cares in the world. And she won. And her first thought afterwards was about Borgov, about his frown, his disapproval, at what she had done. She swallowed the acid that had run into her throat and told the kid the truth:

“You’re the best I’ve ever played.” 

And she heard his reply, meant mostly for himself but loud enough she caught it:

“Until you play Borgov.”

The words stuck in her back like a knife, prickling the back of her neck and she saw him clearly - Borgov standing over her, staring her down, not even trying to intimidate her but managing to unsettle her in ways she still didn’t understand. She didn’t answer, just left Girev sitting there alone, and found Borgov’s board, left there from yesterday, and could sense as well as see the sureness of his moves, of his victory.

She found her mother downstairs by the sound of her playing, her mastery of the piano the mirror of Beth’s own mastery of the board, playing with emotion like Beth played chess. She looked at her mother, confident on the bench, at all her admirers in that hotel lounge, and thought they were truly made for each other, a pair like no other in history. And then she saw the board announcing the next matches - her against Borgov. All feeling drained from her except the sharp noise in her ears that had plagued her since the car crash, and her mother had to lead her to their room. She tried to read, tried to eat, but there was nothing for her now but  _ him _ .

Her realization came in an elevator. She was tucked into a corner when Borgov and four others boarded, and she tried to make herself small, unimportant, trying to look away but not quite managing. But she heard them talking. Understood what they were saying, thank god for her Russian lessons. The two men flanking him listed her weaknesses with such a casual air that she thought she was going to die right there: she was a drunk, she was angry, she’s just a woman-

But Borgov cut them off.

“ _ She’s an orphan. A survivor. She’s like us - losing is not an option for her. Otherwise, what would her life be?” _

Her head snapped up, and she stared. Not a woman. Not a drunk or a failure. A survivor.

Slowly, she saw his head turn, watched it with fascination she wished she didn’t feel, and the instant his eyes met hers she snapped to herself and snapped her eyes away, but he had seen her. He looked away just as slowly, as if he didn’t want to turn. The feeling in her guts was harsher than bathtub gin, and spread down her torso in an unfamiliar way, between her legs, to her toes. She felt she was a million degrees. She was surprised the whole car didn’t catch fire.

Vasily Borgov knew her. Not just her games, not just her failures.  _ She’s an orphan. A survivor. _ The words echoed inside her like she was an empty cathedral just waiting for someone to arrive. 

She was already seated when Borgov arrived, and before he sat he offered her his hand. Her heart was beating a thousand miles an hour as she took it, felt it - rougher than she had expected (what had she expected?) - and he arranged his pieces so they were perfect, precise. Her fingers were on fire.

She looked at the board, controlling her tremor. When she looked up to start the clock, there was her specter: looking down at her, unblinking, face of stone. Face she had pulled out of her wallet dozens of times and used to berate herself, face of her enemy - face of the man who had called her a survivor. She started his clock.

The match was not the fastest she had played but he was measured, sure of himself in a way she had never experienced before. He knew exactly how to destroy her and he did, face as impassive as it ever was. He never looked up at her the entire match, focused only on the board, only on the play, while she couldn’t help but look at his serious face. She felt like she might have a heart attack, like her heart was filling up her lungs. He wasn’t a machine, no, but she didn’t expect to feel this way. Every time he countered her move as if he could read her mind she could feel herself getting angrier, and she knew well in advance that she was going to lose but couldn’t just make herself surrender. 

She was finally playing against Vasily Borgov, and she would not back down, even in the face of certain death.

When she knocked her king down she was shaking, angry at herself, angry at him for knowing her like that. She didn’t say she resigned but the king was down and his eyes finally found hers. She saw something there, in the way his eyes flicked between her own, in the set of his jaw, but all thought was burned away in the rage. She couldn’t even look at him, afraid that what she would see was disappointment. In her.

He reached out his hand again and she almost didn’t take it, but she made herself. She tried to throw her hand down and out of his but he held on for a fraction of a second, only enough for the two of them to notice, and as she looked up in alarm he was looking at her, into her, through her. He was unfathomable, and she was a shallow puddle. She ran back to her mother.

She was shaking hard when she got back to their room but the feeling that had settled over her in the elevator had reasserted itself, and she felt as though her whole body was trapped in a net woven by Borgov specifically to spite her. She was panting, just a little.

No match before had ever felt like this, closer to sex that she wanted to admit to herself, closer to total ruin. She talked and talked about her defeat, about her failure, and told her mother she was glad she wasn’t there to see her humiliation, but when she shook her mother’s leg to get a reaction, she didn’t respond. In Beth’s silence, the room was like a tomb.

Shaking for a different reason now, she turned on the light next to her mother’s head, and saw her unblinking eyes. In an instant she was somewhere else - a bridge, a truck - then back, looking at her mother, crying harder than she had ever cried before. By the time the hotel called the police and the body was taken away, her eyes were dry. She wanted to be in oblivion, and Mexico City made that so easy for her.

BORGOV

Vasily learned about Elizabeth Harmon as a side-note. A foot-note. From Luchenko, maybe, or Laev - he couldn’t remember who it was, when he tried to recall the moment he learned of the girl that would occupy his thoughts for years to come. 

All that was said about her at the time was that she was good, better than most, but was all heart and no head. Easy to logic your way out of, if it ever came to that.

Then she won the U.S. Open in Las Vegas. She became a problem to be solved.

Vasily was always fed a steady stream of information about his rivals, even his fellow Russians, and after the Open, Elizabeth Harmon worked her way into his life on a more regular basis. He was always practicing in order to defeat whatever new (or familiar) opponent he found himself against, but the threat of this girl was such that she began to occupy his time in a way he wasn’t entirely comfortable with. She was all that his fellow players talked about, all that he thought about. When he was speaking to his wife, it was Elizabeth Harmon’s plays that he ran through. When he walked with his son, it was Elizabeth Harmon’s wide eyes that he saw. He would set his jaw and banish this ghost.

He read about her. In her interviews she was candid about being an orphan, about her life in an orphanage, and it made his idea of her slide into place more and more. He knew, after all that reading, that she would do anything to win. He knew that in order to beat her, he would have to play without fault and without hesitation, his grim exterior hiding the inner machinations that were running always in the back of his mind.

They were fated to meet in Mexico City.

It was warmer there than he was used to, and his suit was almost oppressive, but he was here with his wife, his son, his teammates, and the ever-present KGB specter that surrounded him. Him and his family were almost used to it enough to ignore them, but the threat was there always. If they tried to leave, if they disgraced the Soviet Union, there was the KGB to put it right. But in the back of his mind, especially here and now, was Elizabeth Harmon.

His son had begged him and his mother to go to Chapultepec Park to see the animals, and Vasily could not help but smile at his curious son. They went, and the boy was immediately enthralled by the monkey exhibit, enough that they stopped for a half hour just to peruse the primates. His son was bright, as smart as his father, and his beautiful wife so gentle, so kind. The two agents that followed them everywhere were a distant memory.

They were in front of the gorilla exhibit when he felt it. The tingle on the back of the neck of being watched, a feeling he knew intimately from his years being guarded - imprisoned? - by the Russian state. He ignored it as long as he could but it became too much, and he looked away from his wife, his son, and he saw her. Elizabeth Harmon, in retreat. Identifiable by her rust-colored hair if nothing else, walking away from him in a crinkling, clear rain slicker. He had not seen her face, but he knew it was her.

For a few days he was able to put her from his mind, if not completely at least partially. He played his matches, sure he was going to win, and knocked down his opponents one by one. More than once he felt that prickle, though, but did not give in to temptation. He would only look for the girl once he was seated, and then only briefly. If he didn’t see her he pushed her to the side, focusing only on his opponent. If he did, he gave himself the merest second to study her, to really see the anger sitting just behind her eyes. More than once it was hard to tear himself away. More than once he saw her watching him play, and did not allow his attention to go to her until she was already gone.

He saw her as he and his comrades were getting into the elevator, and tucked that away. He did not think any of his companions saw her there, huddling in the corner like a trapped animal. He didn’t feel sorry for her, exactly, but he did know what trapped animals were capable of. 

His second- and third-in-command were talking about her as if he didn’t know everything about her already. About her weaknesses, her alcoholism, as if he had not heard that rumor swirling around for a long time now. But when he heard, “When she blunders, she gets angry, and can be dangerous.” The man meant,  _ can be unpredictable. _ Can do things that no rational player would do, which could trip up even the best players.  _ Had _ tripped up the best players.

And then: “Like all women.”

His attention snapped wholly to that man, and he knew he could make the man feel as if he was pinned down like a specimen, as he did now. He wanted that man to feel the cold anger that was rushing through him now. To say such things while the girl was right behind them was nothing more than rudeness, crass action that he could not tolerate. He did not know if the girl could understand, but to be so cruel was anathema to him. 

“She’s an orphan,” he said, cold and steady, not looking to either of the men but at the door, afraid this would be the time he lost patience with them. “A survivor. She’s like us - losing is not an option for her. Otherwise, what would her life be?” The words came unbidden but he knew they were true, and then he felt sad for the girl, if only for a moment. The orphan, the survivor, the trapped animal. He felt the burn again, her eyes on him, and slowly he turned to look at her. He could feel that she understood them, in the way she stared. The fraction of a second when their eyes met, before she looked away, pierced him through. He turned back just as slowly, his companions finally noticing her too.

Elizabeth Harmon, he thought, biting the inside of his cheek. He could feel the frown line furrow between his eyebrows as his eyes darted back and forth, looking for anything to focus on that was not that girl.

After an eternity the doors were open and he was free, the cool air of the open room tingling his exposed skin. He walked as far as he could before stopping, but as soon as he turned he saw her again, looking at him, flanked by her own comrades, and he jerked his head away in order to not look. His heart was beating but he didn’t know why. His thoughts, racing. He could barely understand what the others were saying and he wasn’t making much effort to make sense of it.

He knew that this girl would be his undoing, though he was not sure yet exactly the cause.

When he got to the board she was already there, as he was hoping she would be. He breathed deep, steady, removing himself from the world and putting himself into the game. He held out his hand as he always did for his opponents - and her fingers on his made him feel like he would choke. He forced his breathing to steady, forced himself to be professional, and proceeded to destroy this girl at his own game. 

He dared not look at her as they played, only gave himself the few seconds before she started his clock to study her. He had played against and won against the highest rated men in the world, but it was this young woman that threatened to be the end of him, this woman who did not follow patterns she found in books but forged new paths. He had not felt this challenged by a game in a long, long time. It made it feel fresh, almost new to him, and while he analyzed her every movement he knew he would still win, might always win, against her.

He had her pinned in the middle game, and they both knew it. But she played on like she could solve the puzzle, like it was a fist fight that she had the power to win. But she lost. There was a pause, and he could still not look at her until she pushed over her queen and slid down in her seat. Then he looked: the anger in her eyes, the slight shake in her fingers, he reached out to her and she took his hand like a violent act and was away from him, and he was left feeling just a little bit empty.

He wanted more than anything to go to her, talk to her, have that closure, but instead he just watched her until he could no longer see her. His mouth was dry.

His wife and son were waiting.

Later, days later, he learned that her adoptive mother had died the same day as their match, and while his brain turned this over and over his face, as always, was stone.


	2. Paris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When she got to Paris, Borgov was one of the first things she saw. L’arc du Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, Vasily Borgov, in that order, Borgov standing out in her mind just as much as any statue in the Louvre when she thought about it later.

BETH

Going back to Lexington felt like a curse. She felt that a sword was above her head, and as soon as she stepped foot into her mother’s home it would fall - but it didn’t. There was no sword. Only sadness, only regret. And Harry Beltik. For a brief time, Harry Beltik.

Harry gave her books she already owned except one, by Borgov himself. She knew the book existed, of course, but she had avoided it, trying to keep her knowledge of Borgov as superficial as possible, and Harry handing it to her felt like a finality sliding into place. She had gotten by thus far with articles and the picture in her wallet and now her match in Mexico City, so reading Borgov’s own words in translation was almost too much for her.

At first, at least.

After Harry left her the first time, her failed seduction already slipping out of her memory, she slid into her mother’s bed just to see what it would feel like. And in her hand, Borgov waited. After the first few pages, she couldn’t put it down. It was engrossing in a way she had not come to expect from chess books, and insightful on top of that. Begrudgingly she had to admit that Borgov was a decent writer, and knew exactly what he was talking about - in some ways at least. There was a television interview, too, that she managed to find, and hearing Borgov speak felt like he was speaking directly to her. His wife sat next to him and translated, and she felt a sharp anger at that that she did not expect, and did not fully understand. She tried to ignore the words coming out of her mouth, focusing on Borgov and Borgov alone.

“I’m a good player, but now I am up against people half my age,” he said. “I don’t know how long I can keep winning.” She sat up straight in bed, leaning in towards the television, willing those words to mean more than they probably did. Willing him to call her out by name, even if just to say she was a failure, a weakling, not remotely the person he was talking about.

Instead, he continued: “I can fight against anyone but time.” 

He closed his eyes as his wife finished translating, licked his lips, shook his head like he was trying to rid himself of the thought.  _ I can fight against anyone but time. _ It was the most emotion she had ever seen the man display, and the gesture was so sad that her heart hurt just a little. She remembered the times where the only thing she felt for him was anger, and wished she had that back.

When Harry finally got up the courage to kiss her, outside in the dark, she made up her mind to let him try to woo her. The whole affair took less than an hour, less than most of her games, and when he rolled off of her she turned to her side for a moment to find her bearings. She didn’t feel anything, really, for Harry - she just needed someone to make her less lonely, and he had done that, and she appreciated him for that, at least. She could feel him looking her, waiting for her to do something but she didn’t know what. She lit a cigarette just for something else to do. Borgov stared at her from her side table, and suddenly all she wanted to do was read; she picked up the book and already had it open as she rolled back, shifting up the bed to sit, ignoring Harry and feeling only a little bad about it.

“Should I stay here or go back to my room?” Harry asked gently, and all she wanted was for him to leave. She wanted to be alone more than anything in the world.

“Whatever you want,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant, but so glad when he eventually left her there alone. She watched him go, not looking back to her, and thought she should feel something other than nothing. With a sigh she closed the book and slid down into bed, chain smoking and thinking, but not about Harry.

Beth was increasingly rude to Harry as the days wore on, but she didn’t know how to make herself nice. They fucked a couple more times but she hoped, prayed that it was as unsatisfying for him as it was for her, because if she thought he might actually be enjoying their awkward fumblings she got angry with him, and treated him worse. 

When he finally left her alone to her own devices she was relieved, more than anything. This was the way it was supposed to be, she thought to herself. This was her truth.

She found Benny again in Ohio, and playing against him was rediscovering sensation. The fog from Harry, from the drink and the drugs, from loneliness, lifted at least fractionally even as she was losing to him in that cafe - she would have let him take all her money if he wanted it, just because her heart and lungs were free for the first time in months. Benny was a friend, Benny was on her same wavelength, the life in his game melting, somewhat, the ice that was Borgov. These two men understood her in a way that no one else did. Though she hadn’t even spoken to one of them. 

_ She’s an orphan. A survivor. _

She shook the thought from her head, his face from her mind, and focused on Benny, on the Game, on the championship. 

She demolished him in thirty moves.

“I really appreciate the way you’re taking this,” she told him after, in the bar. 

“I’m raging, inwardly,” he replied, and she knew it was true. They both took losses the same way, which was to say not well, and she knew the anger in him and it didn’t scare her, didn’t upset her. It was coping, just like it always was.

And then Benny asked her about him.

“What are you gonna do about Borgov?”

It was a question she had asked herself in her more confident moments, but one that she tried to avoid as often as possible; the feeling she got in her gut when thinking about him, about losing to him, hitting her like the beginnings of a hangover. He asked about Borgov, and so she drank. If that queasy feeling was going to come anyway, let there be a reason for it. Seeing Benny’s concern when she chugged her second beer made her want to drink even more. She knew she had a problem but she didn’t want to take control - feeling all her feelings and being sober while she did it was like a death sentence.

_ I’m not so sure I want to go to Paris. _

_ Borgov made me look like a fool. _

She heard herself talk to Benny as if she was at the bottom of a pool, her voice coming to her muddy and distorted. Every time she thought of Mexico City, thought of  _ him  _ looking at her pieces instead of her as she lost, she wanted to bite her own tongue, scream at herself in the mirror, drown herself in cheap booze. She wanted to go to Paris. She wanted to go to Moscow. She wanted to meet Borgov on his own turf and she wanted to win.

Paris was on her almost before she knew it. She had spent weeks with Benny, going over and over Borgov’s games, the thought of him winning in Mexico City loosening from a tight knot in her stomach to a need to be better. To Benny she knew it was just practice, a necessity, but to Beth - after Mexico City - it was intimacy.

She had felt seen, for the first time in a long time, and then she had lost to that man. She needed to know Borgov inside and out for Paris, she knew that, so she and Benny played. His friends, Cleo especially, were welcome distractions from their rigorous re-enactments, but always Borgov was there like a specter. She almost confessed this to Benny one night but for once in her life was too sober to do the impulsive thing like she always had before. To confess to seeing the Russian’s eyes pierce her heart in her dreams was a step too far into a place inside her she still couldn’t quite get the feel of.

When she got to Paris, Borgov was one of the first things she saw. L’arc du Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, Vasily Borgov, in that order, Borgov standing out in her mind just as much as any statue in the Louvre when she thought about it later. 

The first official thing to do in Paris was a press conference where she tracked Borgov with her eyes as he was called into the room ahead of her, seeing him hesitate as he passed through the doorframe and turn just enough to find her behind him, knowing exactly where she was, and for once they shared a breath, and then he looked away. She pressed her knuckles into the middle of her chest in an attempt to stop her heart from beating so loudly. Then her name was called, and she was sat next to Borgov and his wife, that sharp anger back again, and she swallowed it down. 

Her whole side felt like it was on fire. She was separated from him by a single person and all the feelings that she had been working through with Benny came back to her suddenly. She had to do this well, she thought. She had to impress this man now, or never. This was it. This was all she had. She could not lose, otherwise what would her life be?

When he answered questions she would glance over at him, and she was surprised to see his poker-player face sag with exhaustion - or boredom, she was not sure which, but both were interesting to her in their own ways. When he said he would die with his head on a chessboard she just caught the downturn of his mouth. 

When the reporter turned to her finally and asked her about her rematch with Borgov, she hesitated for only a moment before calling him out in a way only he would understand.

“I slept on the plane to Paris so I have no jetlag, and I stay up studying Mr. Borgov’s old games…” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, and saw the recognition in the crease of his brow, his grimace - now he knew she too could speak Russian, knew that she had heard them talk about her in Mexico City, and hoped that meant that he knew she heard when he called her a survivor.

“What about your game in Mexico City?” the reporter asked, and she bit back the heartbeat that was on the tip of her tongue.

She responded in clear Russian, looking directly at the man: “ _ Especially that one. _ ”

His head snapped up to face her, and now there was no doubt that he knew. The expression on his face was unfathomable. She hoped it was fear of her in his eyes. She hoped, now, she lived in his head.

BORGOV

Vasily’s return to Russia was uneventful, as far as these things go. He and his wife sat in quiet companionship on the plane, their son bright eyed and curious as always between them. The day after he arrived home he was back to practicing with the Russian chess team, and everyone was talking about Elizabeth Harmon.

The memory of the girl’s loss replayed in his mind, and on the board sat between the four of them, her moves almost polished enough to do real damage but lacking the finesse, the surety, that he and the others possessed. He knew she hated players that memorized move sets, as he did. Thought they were boring, thought it was useless. And yet, she still lost. She had talent, a mind for unusual plays, but until she knew how to control herself, she would always lose to him.

But when she did learn to think before acting - she would be terrifying.

Practicing for the event in Paris meant shoving Elizabeth Harmon to the side, only one threat in a long line of threats, but even then he found himself returning to her at odd hours. Speaking about an entirely different player, he would compare them to her; when going over a new strategy meant for one person he would think of how it would affect her play; when he was out walking with his wife and son he would think of her retreating back in the park in Mexico City. These kinds of thoughts were the ones he tried hardest to push aside, blinking rapidly to clear his mind, swallowing hard to clear his throat as his wife’s retreating back was Elizabeth Harmon instead.

He would sit in his office, alone in the almost-dark, hands clasped in front of him, held tight until his knuckles were bloodless. As the weeks went on he recognized this for what it was, and felt shame. His wife and child were asleep just on the other side of the door, and all he could think of were Elizabeth Harmon’s pursed lips and hate-filled eyes. Of her pure potential in such a volatile body. He could think of nothing but the fact that one day, he knew, she would destroy him.

He thought of his wife, and had to blink back tears.

After his realization he forced all thought of Elizabeth Harmon out of his mind unless he was practicing to beat her, and then and only then did he allow himself the thought. He needed to fluster her, which was not hard - it’s what he did in Mexico City, and there were myriad other ways to do so, depending on which reckless moves she decided to make. After a couple of months his thoughts of the girl cooled into something more manageable, an acid sitting in his stomach instead of rising up his throat at inopportune times. He became objective, allowed himself to be excited to face her again - he knew she would improve, knew she would give him a real challenge in Paris.

He was asked to give an interview, and had his wife by his side when he messed up. He tried to be as careful with his words as he was with his moves, but it was harder for him, more awkward. He liked being silent, accepted the air of aloofness it gave him, but it was to save himself more than anything else.

He said he was up against players half his age, and he didn’t know how long he could keep winning, and he hoped the listeners imagined the young Girev, but Elizabeth Harmon was the ghost in his words.

He said he could fight anyone but time. 

This girl, just twenty, wide eyed and fierce. He shook his head as his wife spoke, the sound of her voice carrying across Elizabeth’s face and he wished it would drag the young woman away but still she lingered. He felt his heart give out and drop to his knees. He begged for the interview to be over.

In Paris he tried to make up for that interview, said that he didn’t plan on giving up chess, would die sitting at a chess board. This was partially the government telling him he was not allowed to retire, but was also a way to tell himself that he would be eternally viable, and immediately Elizabeth Harmon ruined it. Before the interview began he felt the now-familiar hot prickle on the back of his neck and when he turned he knew exactly where to look to find her. This time his eyes lingered on hers, only a second but longer than he should have, and then his wife -  _ his wife _ \- was at his elbow and ushering him along.

And she said she didn’t have jet lag, and he remembered the elevator in Mexico City, remembered her hiding in the corner, and knew that she had heard him defend her, praise her almost, pitying her in a way that everyone did, just a little.

Then she looked straight at him and answered the reporter in Russian, and his eyes snapped to hers so quickly he didn’t realize it was happening, and it was only his wife’s hand on his arm that made him look away from Elizabeth Harmon. He couldn’t help but smile at this clever, tricky woman but grimaced it away as best he could. He felt like his body was responding without him, felt like his whole body was a heartbeat, and when the interview was over he slipped his wife’s arm onto his and escorted her out as quickly as he could. 

The cool Parisian air on his face only highlighted the flush he felt, and even though his wife’s eyes were curious, he blessed her that she did not ask him any questions. 

His match against Elizabeth Harmon was a farce. She was drunk, or high, or both, distracted by her thirst, presumably trying to drown the rising nausea, but as the game went on she got worse and worse. She was clumsy, obvious, and he tried to fight down his rising disappointment, but the image of the girl that he had built up in his head over the past months shattered as he sat before her and watched her sweat.

During the game in Mexico City he did not have to make himself look at the board and not at her,he did not want the distraction. Now, he had to force himself to look at the board. He wanted to look anywhere but the clumsy game before him, and the more he watched her the more his disappointment shared space with concern. He clenched his jaw to keep from asking her if she was okay, which she obviously was not. He felt his shoulders grow tight as she tried her best and failed to live up to his expectation.

Then she looked behind him. Saw his wife, his son, and she cried. Only a few tears, but enough to unsettle him, enough to make him wonder exactly what this lonely girl had gone through the night before, why she had felt it necessary to ruin her chance to win, and he had hoped it would be a real chance. He wanted to speak out and ask her why she felt such a pull towards self destruction when she could be the greatest of them all.

BETH

Borgov’s eyes barely left her, only long enough to move, and she was spiraling out of control. His gaze was accusation, was her failure made flesh, but that wasn’t right - she was her own failure, had failed herself. Had failed Vasily Borgov.

She was fighting the urge once again to vomit when she looked up and saw them - Borgov’s wife and kid, sitting there, perfect family for the perfect chess player. She saw the mess of pieces on the board in front of her, tried to find anyone she knew or loved as much as he loved his family in the crowd but found only Cleo, the woman she had known for maybe three weeks and threw away this game against Borgov for, and she felt hollowed out and raw. She tried to make a move but as soon as she had he had answered her. She kept looking at him and was overwhelmed to see him looking at her. She traced his features in her mind and saw disappointment in every one. His frown, his severe brow, the flick of his eyes over her, knowing he was seeing her every single flaw.

She stared at him, he stared back, and her heart beat so hard it threatened to rip her apart.  _ Forgive me, _ she did not say.  _ You put your faith in me and I failed, _ she did not scream.  _ I am not a survivor. I am nothing. I am a coward who runs away because I am scared. _

She resigned, and she ran.


	3. Moscow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was there, above him, and it was their time now. They were surrounded by people, but for however long this game lasted they lived in a world of their own, presided over this battle by themselves, and while others would come after and replay this game again and again no matter the outcome they would not understand the emotion the two of them put into it as they played.
> 
> He stood, and grasped her hand, and looked into her eyes. She did not waver as she looked back. I know who you are, he wanted to say. I know who I am, he wanted her to reply. He did not want to let go of her hand, afraid that when he did he would be disappointed once more, but finally they parted, they sat, eyes never leaving the other’s.

BETH

After Paris she spiralled, out and out and out until she saw her life only through the haze of her failures and her addictions. Losing to Borgov was worse than death, maybe. Losing to Borgov was eternal purgatory. She was better than anyone, but not better than him. When she was trapped within her darkest parts his face was all she saw, the disappointment there, and more than that the dismissal. To be dismissed by Vasily Borgov was worse than death.

More often than not she found herself on the floor, alcohol and pill bottles scattered around her, the only art she could make. More than once she came out of a daze to find herself covered in her own vomit, propped up against the bathtub but too far from the toilet. The shame she felt for herself felt like putting on a favorite sweater, and she lived in it. She put it on at the expense of all else. If no one would love her, she would make herself unlovable. 

Harry tried to reach out to her but she had pushed him away before, and painfully so - he did not stay. She did not want him to. He deserved better than her. And then, when he was gone, she missed him more than she thought she ever could.

She kept replaying the car crash in her mind, the only thing that stopped her from thinking of Paris, a mistake she was the center of without knowing it instead of a mistake she was at the center of creating. Her mother turning around and telling her to close her eyes right before she drove headfirst into a truck twice the size of their car. Her mother calling her a problem. What to do with you. The solution was filicide. 

The crash echoed through her bones over and over, shaking her as she lay on the floor and watched the ceiling spin. It was her house now, taken from her bastard of a so-called father, and she filled it with beautiful things that she could barely afford. It was the only thing in her day that made her happy, buying things to rid this house of its oppressive pallor, but it turned into a beautiful tomb instead.

It was Jolene, from the orphanage, that saved her life in the end. She showed up at her door like an angel from heaven, and for a second Beth thought she had died and crossed over. Jolene immediately knew she was unwell, immediately called it out, and Beth had to swallow down shame and pretend to be a human person at least long enough to get Jolene off her back.

“Mr. Shaibel died,” Jolene said as her back was turned, and it stopped Beth in her tracks. It stopped her heart. It stopped her breath. When Jolene said they could go together to his funeral she didn’t say a word, couldn’t say a word, didn’t know if she could stand to shame the man who tried to raise her right by showing up the way she was.

“God, Beth,” Jolene sighed, looking around at the mess that was her life, and the two words carried an ocean in them. Not judgment, exactly, but a tired worry that she had missed out on for ten years.

“Yeah,” was all she had to say for herself. “I know.”

Being in the house with Jolene was like a different sweater than self-destruction had been, one that was itchy on her skin but warmer, more comforting, and they slipped into their familiar grooves without a moment’s hesitation. Hearing about Jolene’s accomplishments made her ache, made the sharp anger rise in her throat but it was dulled by the love she still had for the girl. She listened, engaged, because she could not bear to talk about Beltik or Benny or Borgov, or Mr. Shaibel.

“I’m supposed to go to Russia at the end of the year,” came out of her before she could stop it. Not Borgov directly, but always on her periphery.

The conversation this brought was painful, but she could not stop herself from talking. About how scared she was, about how hard she still had to work. About how she was afraid she had erased her own brain. 

Losing is not an option - otherwise, what would her life be?

It was nothingness, it was emptiness, it was wine and pills and self-destruction. For the first time this all came into focus for her, here in bed with Jolene, and she was shocked by the realization but knew she had tricked herself into ignoring it until someone she trusted more than she trusted herself shone a light into the hole that she had dug herself.

She tried to talk herself back into that hole but Jolene, sweet Jolene, would not let her, and instead of the piercing anger she allowed herself to feel only the hollowness, and the capability she still had for growth. Maybe she didn’t have to believe in herself - maybe it was enough that someone else did, and maybe she could learn how to believe along the way.

She saw his face again in her dreams, over the board in Paris - the disappointment in the set of Borgov’s jaw always there haunting her, but something else now too: concern for her in his eyes that she had never considered before. What would her life be? Borgov had asked, not to taunt her but because he, too, knew that without chess and championship there was nothing left for them. They had sold everything else away for this game, like all masters and grand masters had to do, and she knew then that he wanted her to be better than she was because the alternative was this destruction. Vasily Borgov had believed in her more than she had believed in herself. Her heart beat painful in her chest.

She awoke hearing the sound of screeching tires and shattering glass.

Jolene took her to her old home. Her hold house - the word ‘home’ had a meaning, none of which was to be found in that raggedy trailer, surrounded by junk. Her mother could have had everything, but she refused to be kept by a bastard husband, even if he was rich. Instead she tried to kill herself and her daughter, her innocent daughter, because that was the only solution to their problems that she could see. It was the same for Beth, she realized now, just with less outward violence. All of her violence came from within and stabbed out.

After the funeral they went to the orphanage they grew up in, just to look around, to see if there were any memories worth saving. And there was, for Beth: there she found Mr. Shaibel’s collection of articles about her, the interviews she had given and the things she had written for chess magazines. Two articles about her losses to Borgov. The letter she wrote him before her first tournament, asking him for five dollars. The picture they took together, her hand awkwardly on his shoulder. She took the photo, left the rest, and cried and cried and cried when she got back to the car.

She went to Moscow alone. Everyone told her it was crazy to go alone, but who else did she have? Jolene gave her the money for her own ticket, but did not have enough for both of them, and to have Benny or Harry there would be distraction more than anything, a reminder of things past. The only reminders she had were in her wallet: a photo of her actual mother, the woman who adopted her, replacing the photo of her birth mother that she finally took a match to, the small flames purifying something within her; the photo of herself and Mr. Shaibel, to remind her of how far she had come; her well-worn clipping of Vasily Borgov, to remind her of how far she still had to go.

The State Department gave her a man, Mr. Booth - a guard or a babysitter she was not sure - who in turn immediately gave her rules. She argued with him more out of habit than anything else, relieved deep down that he was there in part to prevent her from drinking, but was more intrigued by what he said after:

“Tell me immediately if any of the Russian players tries to speak with you, especially Mr. Borgov. If he sends a signal in any way, or sends a note, I want to know.”

She argued this as well - how would she know what a signal was? Why would he be signalling her? - but for a moment the thought of Vasily Borgov communicating with her something secret just the two of them might share, knocked the wind out of her. She was back in that elevator in Mexico City and he was looking back at her. She was in the press conference in Paris and she spoke Russian, just for him. What kind of signals were those, that passed between them and only them? 

By the time the plane landed her ears were ringing and her thoughts were muddled. She was glad for the rain that had started falling, cooling her face and slowing her racing thoughts. She was hoping against hope that she would get a glimpse of the other players - of him - but Mr. Booth was a professional, and impatient. Before she knew it she was in her room, and there was nothing to do but study and think. This was enough, she hoped, to get her through the night.

The next morning the players - and all their handlers - were gathered together before the games started, and she and Borgov were opposite one another, and she forced herself to look away. She could get no signals, no coded messages, if she did not dare look. None of them spoke to her, and rarely did they look at her. She locked her elbows to stop herself from shaking.

When her eyes did wander over to him, more often than not Borgov was looking back at her, quick as a breath, then away, to his countrymen, exterior calm as always while she felt electric shocks run through her. She wished it was over. She wished she was playing, where at least she had some control.

Sitting at her board, she let herself get swept away by the drama of it all, lit from above and surrounded by people, with small children playing dramatic music. Even their musicians started young, she could not help but think. What if America was like this? What if instead of Lexington she had been raised here, been able to go to an actual school to study chess? The answer came quick when she looked over and saw the Russian women’s world champion sitting on the sidelines. She would not be playing and winning against these men. She would not be waiting to best Borgov at his own game, wresting that small bit of control from his grasp, making damn sure that he knew that she was better than him, at least for now.

Her first game was over quickly, then it was back to the hotel for an inedible feast with the players and their families, and then, too, nobody spoke to her. She had no family, they were all either dead or had left or were too poor to come with her, and she had to sit with her empty life and her empty stomach and watch Borgov smile at his wife and charm the other players and not give her a second thought. She begged more than anything that he - any of the Russian players, at this point - would give her one of those mysterious signals so at least something in her life would have meaning again. It was so hard to keep hold of reality when there was nothing there to hold you down.

Her second match was just as short, but that was when she finally got her signal. As she left, her partner defeated, she felt the hair rise on her neck, knew the feeling, heard his chair scrape as he stood - saw his back as he looked at her board. Vasily Borgov had left his own match in the middle to witness her victory. He rubbed his cheek with one hand, brow furrowed in that now-familiar way, and as he turned his head to find her she turned first, and walked away.

She had a gathering now when she left, mostly women but a smattering of men, and she held this thought in her chest like a pearl. The fact that it thoroughly confused Mr. Booth was a bonus. She was good, really good, and she could feel the difference now. She was sober, she was well-practiced, she was determined. This was her proof that she was worthy to live in this world, in any world. That, and her third and fourth wins which were quick and clean executions absolutely without mercy. She had her edge once more, the sharp anger that had been dulled by drink and drugs honed fine. She was alone, but she was not distracted, at least by anyone who did not matter.

Her match with Luchenko was like battle, like art. It was said that the game of chess was a recreation of war and she could see the truth in it now, against this old man. She had no thoughts but of Luchenko’s mastery and her own matched skill, could feel the push and pull of the game as his threat against her grew. She had never had such an enjoyable game as this, even as the night ended in adjournment. Luchenko and Girev - these were the ones she would be thrilled to play again. After, only after, Borgov.

She was so engrossed in thinking of Luchenko, finding her hotel room through habit alone, that it took a while for the muffled Russian voices to reach her. Her hand was on her door by the time she recognized the voices, and turning, she saw him. Luchenko, yes, but Borgov too, just down the hall, going through the game from that afternoon. Luchenko looked serious, but more than that he looked concerned, and for the first time in a long time she felt pride running through her. Borgov, though, looked amused. Serious as always but looser than she had ever seen him, and for the first time she could see the way he worked: moving pieces back and forth not with certainty but with experimentation. She looked through the door, only slightly trying to hide from the concentrating men, and looked at Borgov standing there. He was without his suit jacket, sleeves rolled up, handsome - handsome? - and she was filled with a burning, a longing, so powerful she had to leave.

Before she was at her door, she heard his close.

Luchenko, of course, fell to her as they all did, and still she was thrilled to be playing him.

You are a marvel, he said. I may have just played the best game of chess of my life, he said.

The pride she felt the night before was nothing compared to this - she felt she was blooming under a sun far more powerful than herself, given permission, finally to be great.

That night she thought again of her birth mother. The woman who gave birth to her, tried her best to raise her, tried to kill her. She hated that her mind gave her no time to gloat, no time to revel; it was darkness, darkness, darkness. She felt herself being swallowed, and she wanted to let herself go. 

The doubt, then: tomorrow, it was Borgov. She was his great disappointment, the person he wanted to do well, had such faith in at first, and she had buried that faith in a grave of her own making. She gathered around herself every bad word that had ever been said about her, the ones she hurled at herself at the forefront, and tried to make herself a tomb. She had her pills, she always had her pills, could end this before it even started, make Borgov’s disappointment in her justified.

She is a survivor, he had said. The words rose through her own throat, sat heavy on her own tongue, and she thought of him only a few doors away. Did he still believe in her, after all this? Did he still think her a threat? Did he think of her at all?

She took her pills and flushed them.

She wanted to see if he still thought of her, wanted to see if she could make him believe in her again. If she couldn’t believe in herself, she would make someone else do it for her, and she would climb out of her hole with the help of others, for once, for once.

BORGOV

Borgov could not keep Elizabeth Harmon out of his thoughts. He tried, after Paris, after his disappointment in her, but it was more often than not overshadowed by concern. There had always been talk that she was an addict, that she was unstable, but it was the first time he had seen it up close, and he could not help but be alarmed by it. He stopped seeing her face, her red hair, and started imagining her broken little existence back in the US. He played back those two games he had had against her and as he found over and over the mistakes she had made he thought of her lonely childhood, her lonely adulthood. The tears in her eyes when she realized she had no one in Paris. 

The words he bit back then haunted him. He should have asked if she was alright, even though it was trite. He should have asked her what she needed. Support, from anyone, but mostly from herself, not something he could provide even if he had spoken to her in Paris. He had let his alarm at her state, his disappointment, still his words. This was his regret.

He had been elated by the young woman when he first learned of her skill, and after meeting her at last he felt justified for his excitement, even when she lost. It was selfish of him, perhaps, to want her to improve, but he wanted a game that was entertaining in new ways, not the same old push-and-pull he had with his countrymen. It was selfish of him, perhaps, to want her to find herself again amongst her, he now knew, multitude of demons. What was abstract to him before was cast into full relief in Paris, and as his hand lingered on the queen in front of him he wished they could speak, outside of the game.

His wife had become increasingly curt with him whenever he spoke of Elizabeth and his concern for her, and the guilt still sat heavy in his chest whenever she told him to stop, stop talking about that girl, please. Around the house, then, he now avoided the question of chess because it always came back to her. When he was practicing with his fellow players, though, he would ask.

News of her became scarce, then stopped altogether. She seemed to have deteriorated since Paris, and nobody could tell him if she was alive, or dead. The thought of her dying alone hit him hard and out of nowhere one night while he was in his office, and he pressed his fist hard into his mouth to stop himself from crying out. 

He pushed her out of his mind, as best he could, to focus on the games in Moscow. He became serene, still as a lake, ice cold as he was expected to be, performing, essentially, so that he could convince himself that he was done with her. She had disappointed him in Paris, and now she was seemingly nowhere. He had other things to focus on.

He heard of her again only a couple of months before Moscow, how she had registered the day before her deadline. It was like a breath he didn’t know he was holding was released.

Elizabeth arrived in Moscow without a true escort, no friends or family, just a man from the government like they all had. He felt bad for her, remembered her tears when she saw his family in Paris, but he let himself believe in her again, trust that she would show him true mastery that he had missed for so long. To have an actual challenge again would be thrilling.

The breakfast on the first day was the first time he had seen her in what felt like years. She was an entirely different woman than she had been, even surrounded by strangers as she was. He tried to engage with the other players as best he could, but kept feeling the tingle on his skin that drew his eyes back to hers. Fleeting moments.

Whenever he played in tournaments like this a calm really did descend. A faith that he knew exactly what he was doing, that he was the best player of his time. And he loved the challenge, loved drawing out games as long as he could just to see what others would do, knowing he would still know when to pull back, to be serious, and win. As much as people called him a machine, he did play with a passion. It just was not one that many others understood. As Elizabeth won game after game, he knew that he would soon be playing his kind of passion against hers.

He heard her heels on the floor and he looked up from the board. 

The final game.

She was there, above him, and it was their time now. They were surrounded by people, but for however long this game lasted they lived in a world of their own, presided over this battle by themselves, and while others would come after and replay this game again and again no matter the outcome they would not understand the emotion the two of them put into it as they played.

He stood, and grasped her hand, and looked into her eyes. She did not waver as she looked back. I know who you are, he wanted to say. I know who I am, he wanted her to reply. He did not want to let go of her hand, afraid that when he did he would be disappointed once more, but finally they parted, they sat, eyes never leaving the other’s. 

Her first move was standard, but his response was not, and the flick of her eyes to his was encouraging. They traded like this the whole opening, and he felt his heart beat hard in his chest. This game was unusual already, new territory for both of them, and this time she was holding her own. Neither of them did what they were supposed to do, and this was the sport he had fallen in love with.

The game grew long, and he felt himself slow. He tried not to look at her, tried to keep his practiced calm, but he was slipping, he could feel it. He was losing control of the game. There was a spark of anger that was immediately repressed, then the thrill of being caught out, finally, by Elizabeth Harmon. The woman that he had pinned his hopes to, foolishly, was evolving, coming for him, and for the first time in a long time he realized he might actually lose. His skin felt electric, hot. He paused before he could make any foolish late-night mistakes.

“Adjourn,” is all he said, looking at her openly now and letting her look at him. The tournament director let him write down his play and he left without looking at her again. He could feel her eyes on his back. 

The crowd of reporters outside the room gave him a passing glance but not much of one; he was not the one they were there to see. He took his wife’s hand, and she their son’s as they left the building and were picked up by their assigned driver. His mind was exhausted and he could feel his frown deepen as he thought of the game. He carefully avoided his wife’s gaze and hoped desperately that she knew it was only the game on his mind.

He asked his wife to head up to their room, told her he needed to think in peace. Her stare lingered on him as she slowly turned, and he finally looked at her to try to cut the heat in the gaze. But she and their boy left him alone. He needed his calm, his patience, his wit. He would not lose to Elizabeth on purpose, to justify his feelings for her to himself, but he needed the clarity that came with practice. This was new territory, or at least a road not often travelled anymore, and she was fast, so fast, and smart-

He slid into the elevator to go back to his practice room, and took one deep breath, then another. His mind was racing and he needed it not to. 

The room was empty when he got there, and he gratefully locked the doors behind him. It would not stop the others, they all had their own keys, but it would give him warning before they arrived. He stripped off his jacket and threw it onto the couch closest to him, and dropped into a chair beside it. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eye until he saw stars, trying to calm his breathing more and failing. He shot back to his feet and towards the vodka that they had left on the table the night before but it was not there. Scanning the room he found it again, half hidden by a decorative plant, and at least had the composure left to scrounge up a shot glass to pour it in. Two drinks in quick succession and he stowed the bottle again.

He cracked his knuckles as the warmth from the liquor spread through his limbs, and he set up the board from their game. She had made no mistakes. Neither had he. There was a way, there was always a way, and he would find it. Luchenko and Laev showed up as he was resetting the board for the third time, and they worked through the problem late into the night. His fingers were cold, the winter seeping through the stone walls of the hotel, and he kept seeing her eyes as he played.

When they came back together, she glowed. She smiled at him, small and quick, before they shook hands, and just once, very quickly, she squeezed. 

He did not know if she had worked through their game alone, or if she had finally found help, but everything he tried she could counter. He raked his gaze across the board, looking for his outs, looking at her handiwork. For a while, everything was going according to a plan, him shunting her one way, her shunting him another, and eventually he realized what she was planning. He drew the play out, drew her out just to see what she would do, and when he finally made his move the shock on her face, the gasp from the crowd, let him know that it had worked.

He watched her, waited for the panic that had been so easy to draw out of her before, and instead she became still. She breathed in deep, looked at the board - looked at the ceiling. Her gaze lingered up there for so long he followed her gaze but nothing was there, of course nothing was there, so he returned to her face.

Looking at the ceiling, she was bathed in light. He could see her every feature, every movement of her eye, realized she was going through plays in her head, above her head, and his mouth went dry. Somewhere in the past two days his desperation had grown so much that he felt that he was on fire, and Elizabeth Harmon was sitting in front of him now as cool and calm as he had ever been. He had become her student as much as she had become his.

She was beautiful, he admitted finally. She played beautifully. He would be content to play and win and lose against her in every tournament until he died, just to see her learn and change. He had become a swamp, and it was Beth Harmon that challenged him to grow again. 

His heart beat hard and he lost his breath for a moment. He made himself look away from Beth and find his wife in the crowd, but she was wearing a mask, a frown so slight that nobody but her husband could probably see it. So he looked away.

BETH

Watching Vasily Borgov come back to his prime for her, because of her, made her feel like she had melted. Benny and Harry and Townes and all her boys had come through for her, beautifully, and she was so grateful for them she cried in the car on the way back to the tournament hall. But Vasily Borgov playing this perfect game for her was transcendent.

This is what chess was meant to be, she thought, warmth spreading through her chest and down through her toes. Two perfect players playing perfectly, but one always destined to lose. One always destined to win. 

She thought that was her. And then he moved his fucking pawn.

His eyes were on her, waiting for her to explode, and the anger and panic that ripped through her threatened to collapse her but she forced herself to grab it by the neck and drown it in her sea of calm. The ripples faded. She took a deep breath. She looked up.

For a moment, nothing. Then the game, over and over, playing out a thousand times in all possible directions. She saw Borgov’s eyes follow hers up but did not care if she looked foolish in front of these people now. The spectators did not exist. It was her, it was Vasily Borgov, and it was her victory that she was ripping out of his hands.

BORGOV

Her eyes snapped back down to his, then the board, then she moved. She felt still where he felt raw, and even as he lost he could not help but be awed by her once again. He wondered if he would ever get used to the sensation.

His jaw ached from clenching it so tightly, and it was with an effort that he offered Beth a draw.

He never offered draws. It was not the thing that was done.

He was amused, though, offering this draw, wondering if she would take it and knowing that she wouldn’t, and he had to fight against a smile when she looked at him with shock, then a small amusement of her own. She knew she was winning, and she wanted his blood. He did not move his eyes from hers, she did not blink away.

When she shook her head no he was almost elated.

BETH

It was almost over, she knew it now, and she could feel her edge growing as he moved. It was now a matter of paring down pieces until only the essentials remained. The king, the queen. Vasily Borgov, Beth Harmon.

She looked at the sharp features of his face and could see the uncertainty there, but when he looked at her he was as sure as she had ever seen him. She moved a piece, started his clock. Watched him deliberate. Did not want to look away.

The knowledge that she loved him, at least a little, hit her at high speed. Her muddled thoughts about the man came to her every time a piece was moved, layering themselves into a picture she did not know if she liked. It was sadness first, then desperation. Pride, failure. All coming together and weighing on her. She pushed everyone away, even the people that she ostensibly loved, but it was chess that had given her pride, and chess that took away her failure. It was Vasily Borgov that believed in her, and that she was devastated to let down. She wanted so desperately to give him a reason to hate her like all the others but instead he seemed to revel in her accomplishments and her growth. He was the first person to look at her as a survivor rather than a joke. The first to acknowledge that failure was akin to death. Without this game, what would either of them have?

She traded a pawn for her queen. Her whole body was a heartbeat. Every move after that was just a slow road to the end.

When she looked up from the board she knew it was over. For the first time, Vasily Borgov was smiling at her. 

“It’s your game,” he said, more softly than she ever thought possible. He took up his king and presented it to her. “Take it.”

She was lightheaded, and when she made to take the queen she wrapped her hand in his, and he took her hand right back. It was warm, and soft, and she wanted more than anything to cry and not let go.

BORGOV

The realization that he had lost, really lost, came quick. He looked around the board over and over, looking for any way out, but there was none. She had done it. He was exhausted. He looked up to her, this woman that he had followed for years now, and could only smile. He was sad, too - losing was painful, even when your opponent plays a perfect game - but the shock on her face, the red rising in her cheeks as she realized her victory, was all he had really wanted to see.

He held out his king. It was hers, it was all hers, and he saw her blink back tears as he lifted her to her feet, pulled her into his arms. She was shaking as they stood like that for a few long moments, and he could feel her breathing hard under his palms. Her hands pressed once, light, into his back, and he let her go, held out her hand like a dancer, let her take the spotlight from him. He clapped for her until his hands ached. She deserved this, deserved all of this. 

He had never been so relieved to lose.


	4. Endgame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here, in the dark, after it was all over, he finally asked himself: what happens if she does not want me? What happens if, now that I’m vanquished, I become just another man that she’s beaten? An old man, a married man, who has fallen in love with an American woman because he has built her up in his mind like a titan.

BETH

With shaking fingers she put the black king on her side table. After the chaos that was the reporters, then her Russian fans outside, then playing chess in that little park for hours until her State Department handler Mr. Booth made her leave, the silence in her room was like a cold breeze.

She was dizzy almost, lightheaded for sure, the memory of her win - Borgov’s smiling face, the people all clapping for her - running over and over. For the first time in her memory she savored it. Could let herself savor it. She dressed down to her nightgown and lay on her bed, shifting on top of the covers and smiling to herself.

Eventually her thoughts calmed and she was just back in her room, surrounded by quiet, the occasional muffled step or cough out in the hall. She thought about sleeping - it was very late after all, past midnight she was pretty sure. Her palms felt itchy, begging to move, and she forced them to stillness. She sighed into the silence. She thought of Borgov. Always Borgov.

She had seen a different side of him here in Moscow than she ever expected to see, a side she didn’t know really existed. Borgov in his own country, surrounded by people he knew, his friends, he was almost a new person. He allowed her access to some of that during the game, playing fluidly and lacking his usual calm. She pressed her knuckles into her chest to stop her heart thudding, but it didn’t work. She saw him sitting across from her, looking at her, smiling at her. She took up the king again and held it in her hand, warming up the cool wood and imagining him presenting it to her.

She slammed the little piece back down onto the table and grabbed her coat, sliding on her shoes and begging not to lose her nerve now. She slipped on the coat before she went into the hallway and as she looked to the door at the end there was indeed a man there standing guard. Someone was in there, at least. Maybe many someones, though there were usually two guards if that was the case. If it was a gathering for the defeated Russians (a commiseration?) she would just apologize for interrupting and bow out. If it was Luchenko, she would stay and talk, make the best of the time she had left here. If it was Borgov… A ringing started in her ears and she shook her head sharply, pushing whatever thought that had caused it away.

When she shuffled barefoot up to the door she glanced at the guard but didn’t stop, wondered what his point was if not to actually guard whoever was in the room. Prevent them from escaping, maybe, if Mr. Booth was any indication. The guard just looked her up and down and smirked before looking away. She didn’t know what that meant, but it succeeded in making her nervous, which maybe was what the KGB was really all about.

She knocked and heard Borgov’s low rumble a second later, but could not discern what he was saying. She looked at the guard nervously, but he just smirked again and jerked his head towards the door, so she opened it slowly, not looking away from him until he looked away from her.

She saw him for a second before he noticed her standing there. His jacket was off and thrown on the ground, his elbows firm on his knees, his hands clasped before him. On the table was a half-full bottle of vodka and a single shot glass.

Then he looked up, and looked at her, and she had to swallow hard to keep herself from gasping like she had just been punched.

He was tired, rumpled, but when he saw her he smiled a little half smile she had seen before. He looked amused. The top couple buttons of his shirt were undone and his sleeves were rolled up, exposing shockingly firm forearms for a chess grand master. He looked intimate while still clothed.

For just a second Beth felt like a bygone peasant getting a thrill from seeing a bit of ankle. But even through the ringing in her ears she couldn’t make herself see him as anything but beautiful. No matter how hard she tried. She had won against him finally and he had lost all his power over her, power that she gave him, not power he actually had, or even seemed to want. He looked smaller somehow than the man from the game. He really was just another Russian in a black suit, and it was almost overwhelming.

He waited until she reached him to stand up, sliding his hands into his pockets, smiling slightly at her, just as inscrutable as ever, really.

“Mr. Borgov,” she said, trying to sound brave but mostly failing.

“Miss Harmon,” he said, looking at her coat. She wished she had put on real clothes again.

“Have you come to brag?” he asked, breaking away from her just long enough to pour himself another shot of vodka, not offering her any and she was so glad for that.

“I came here to talk,” she said lightly, not feeling light at all.

For a long moment he stood in front of her, looking down at her, expression growing softer and softer as she looked.

“Please,” he said with a small smile, “call me Vasily.” He sat down on the small, gilded couch he had just vacated and gestured loosely beside him. 

She blinked, surprised, the warmth and casualness in his posture overwhelming after so long thinking of him as more machine than man. She sat on the edge of the seat beside him.

“Call me Beth,” she said eventually, when she could make the words.

He held out his hand, and without hesitation she took it, larger than her own and warm, and firm.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Beth,” he said with a bow of his head, looking up at her from under his lashes, and she did not want to let him go. Realized that with the door closed behind them she wouldn’t necessarily have to - but, his wife, she thought with a pang. But he did not let go either. For too long they sat in companionable silence, holding the handshake, one breath, two breaths, then finally he pulled away. Her hand floated down and she could still feel his grip.They were closer to each other than they had ever been. 

“You played beautifully,” he said in a huff, whole body just a little limp with exhaustion as she was sure her own was, but he was looking at her with genuine - affection? Was it? She wanted it to be, she dreaded that it wasn’t.

“I never thought I’d get this far,” she laughed, sliding out of her coat and tucking her feet under her, angling toward him. “To Moscow, to Paris,” she said, inclining her head towards him like it was an in-joke, and maybe it was. She let her gaze wander the room, count the scattered chessboards. “Let alone being able to win against you. Playing Girev and Luchenko, those are matches that I’ll go over again, but the one against you…” She looked at him again with a smile, but his gaze was heavy now, intense, and she lost her train of thought. Warmth spread through her, down her, and breathing was suddenly hard, and he was leaning in just a fraction, mouth open just a fraction, and she had to look away, the blush in her face stinging.

“You always had the potential, even in Mexico City,” he said thoughtfully, not moving away. “Not perfected yet, perhaps. Maybe you would never have won in Mexico City, but in Paris, you could have.” 

Looking at him now she thought she might strangle on her own words. This was it. He was going to call her out, tell her she was a joke, she had potential but she had wasted it all. She wanted to bolt, as quick as she could, to escape.

“I was worried about you, you know.” He spoke into the silence, frown mostly showing in the crease of his brow, and she did not know what to say, so she said nothing, her mouth going dry. “I regretted… every day, not asking you if you needed help after you left. I didn’t like seeing you cry. I thought…” His eyes searched the room, searching for words. “...I thought you had died, maybe, and I didn’t know what to do. How to reach you.”

She felt herself shaking like she was out of her own body, rattling like loose bones, because that’s all she was. She slid her legs out from under her and accepted the sharp pain of them regaining circulation. She turned away, knowing she could not stop herself from speaking now.

“I’ve always dreamed about dying,” she said quietly, heard him shift in his seat beside her but looking closely at her hands in her lap. Afraid to look at him. “I was afraid to go to sleep when I was little because I worried I wouldn’t wake up again.”

“Because of your mother?” he asked. She shook her head. She felt like broken glass.

“Before that. I don’t know when it started but it never really stopped, you know? I’d cry myself to sleep, and my mom would come and put my head in her lap. Even before the crash I never thought I’d live very long. After the crash that just became a reality for me.” She balled her hands into fists, pressing her nails hard into her palms, fighting the urge to cry.

His hands reached out to hers, cupping her fists in his open palm, sliding his thumbs between her clenched fingers, opening her up before she could hurt herself more. 

The sob heaved up and out of her and it felt like ripping, and her head snapped up to find him so close, worry evident in every line of his face. She let herself cry and look at him, the only two things she had wanted to do for so long.

“I’m glad you came back to me,” he whispered, and he reached out to her and she fought against leaning away, the thing she had always, always done, and he cupped her face in his warm hands and drew her to his chest, and she pressed herself into him and cried. By inches she crawled into his space and he let her, shifting his legs so she could tuck herself up into him and let him surround all of her.

This was the first time maybe ever she had let someone see her cry so pitifully, so messily, but he did not pity her - he accepted her mess. Didn’t push it aside like Harry Beltik had tried to, hadn’t been so focused on the game as Benny Watts had been that he turned an intimate moment into nothing. Vasily knew she was broken and worried, yes, but didn’t try to sweep her shattered parts away. He was trying, now, to hold her together instead.

When the painful crying slowed she knew she had covered him in tears and snot, wondered if he would care. She sniffed too-loudly and moved slowly to right herself, and he shifted just enough to find his handkerchief in his abandoned jacket pocket, handing it to her, brushing a stray tear from her cheek as she took it. She at least had the decency to look away when she blew her nose, and held the used cloth in her hands like it was a treasure.

A slight touch on her jaw made her start, and she realized it was the back of his fingers, cool on her hot skin, and he drew her face up to his, and for a while neither of them blinked. She soak him in now in the wake of her crying and let herself enjoy his fingers lingering on her face.

“ _Are_ you okay?” he asked, almost inaudible over her own heartbeat.

She nodded, once. “For now,” she said.

“Is this okay?” he asked, pressing his other hand into the small of her back, making her arch forward, the thumb of his other finding just below her bottom lip, drawing her towards himself.

She breathed heavy, feeling her own arousal now in the wake of her sadness, hearing his own breath go jagged as he held her like this, poised on the brink of something. She licked her dry lips and he looked down at the movement, then up. She knew if she said no he would let go immediately, would have no more thought in his head about touching her, if she asked him not to.

“Yes, this is okay,” she said, moving closer. “Please, it’s okay.”

When they kissed, that first time, it was softer than anything she expected. Borgov had been terrifying and cold to her for years, even after she had met him in person, but Vasily was soft, and warm, and gentle. She closed her eyes to concentrate on the kiss, saw him jittery and on the edge of anger during their match just a few hours ago, compared it to what was happening now. It was almost chaste.

She felt herself become overwhelmed by his touch, heard him sigh right before he pressed harder into her, kissing desperately, trying, she thought, to make up for lost time. Knowing that they did not have that time right now. He shifted under her, and the feel of him between her legs was almost painful arousal.

She slid her arms out from the cocoon the two of them made and around his neck without breaking them apart, and drew herself in, let him take her in, the hand on her back wide and firm, the hand on her neck holding her tightly. She opened her eyes long enough to see that his were closed, saw that worried furrow of his brown, thought about pulling away but before she could act on the impulse he moved so he was embracing her now, tight to his chest, and she let herself be held.

They broke their kiss just long enough for Vasily to shift and Beth to slide on top of him, her nightgown riding up her thighs. She leaned into him, hugging him as close as she could. His hands slid up and tangled in her hair, pulling gently, enough to make her gasp, and then she moved away from him.

They paused, then, breathing hard, looking at each other’s flushed faces. She could see every cord of his neck as he looked up at her, and she stretched herself taller to make him follow her movement. Through her thin nightgown she felt the cold press of his wedding ring. He swallowed hard and looked away from her, and she wanted to feel bad for his wife, feel something for his wife, but she could not, did not want to, look away from Vasily Borgov. They both stilled almost fully before he turned back to her, face set as if he was playing a game.

Beth hesitated.

“Is this okay?” she asked finally, repeating his own question back to him. The corner of his mouth twitched up and it almost looked pained, but he did not turn away.

In answer he nodded, and started unbuttoning his shirt. Slowly she moved to kiss him again and he met her quickly, surprising her enough to make her gasp. He leaned forward to slide out of his dress shirt crisply, almost formally, then threw it on the ground next to his expensive jacket, the undershirt following close behind. 

She had to cling to his neck to keep from tipping over, but was off her knees just long enough for Vasily’s hands to slide up her thighs, pick her up like she was nothing, and slide her onto the table that he had used to practice chess. Her hip knocked into a board and without looking behind her she shoved the board out of the way, sending the pieces skittering across the floor.

He followed the pieces with his eyes as they spun, unbuttoning his trousers nows with same crisp movements as his shirt. He snorted, looked at her as he slid down his pants just enough to free himself.

“That was our game, you know,” he said, and she slipped her underwear off with shaky, eager fingers. “I was trying to figure out where I could have bested you.” He put his hands high on her thighs and slid her closer to himself, pressing against her, and she could not help but reach out and touch him.

“Did you find a way?” she asked, noticing for the first time that his eyes were blue.

He smiled a little sadly, shook his head, and slid into her with a small moan.

Fucking Vasily Borgov was different than fucking Harry or Benny had been. Not just physically - Vasily was more imposing than either of them had been and really, wasn’t that some of the appeal? - but emotionally, too, she could feel it. He moved with her without prompting, their rhythm steady even though it was rushed, knowing they only had so much time here before someone would discover them. His wife, maybe.

She wrapped her legs tight around his waist and pressed her forehead to his, and they locked eyes as he slid a hand down between them to find her clit. She felt desperate now, needy, and he let her be needy, and she could see in his eyes and feel in his touch that he needed her too. He felt calm, though, and sure as he moved, his expression soft as he looked at her, softer than he had ever been before, and she dug her fingers into his back as she came, trying desperately to be quiet so he kissed her to keep her from gasping his name - his first name - and closed his eyes only when he followed soon after.

VASILY

The reporters that cornered him on the way out of the tournament hall, more than yesterday and more, perhaps, than he had ever seen before, were oppressive. He answered their questions as calmly as he could, his wife and son stoic and smiling behind him, but he was curt with them, and let them believe it was because of the loss and not because of Elizabeth Harmon herself.

He could feel her pressed into him even after he let go, his arms almost wrapped around her entire frame, held tight, too tight. Her hands were, puzzling to him, at his waist, holding him still, holding him so tightly it almost hurt. 

His wife tried to talk to him on the ride back to the hotel and he tried to answer but he was distracted, and suspected she, unlike the reporters, knew it was from more than the game. Their son was an explosion of sound, discussing (as he had been taught to by Vasily) every nuance of every move. The boy delighted in explaining exactly why his father lost, and he felt such affection for his son that his heart hurt.

When they got to the hotel, he sent them both away.

He wanted to be alone right now. Needed to be alone. He went to the Russian’s practice room and saw Luchenko and Laev there, ready to toast to his untimely demise. He threw back one shot and asked them to leave almost before his glass hit the table again. They both threw up their hands and laughed, letting the injured animal lick at his wounds. When they were well away from the door he slid out long enough to tell the guard to let no one in, then snapped the door shut behind him. 

He pressed his back to the cool wood and tried to steady his breathing. When he could not, he opened the door a crack and told him, “If Elizabeth Harmon, the American girl, comes, let her in. Nobody else.”

The agent laughed in his face, but agreed.

He all but collapsed onto the small sofa, pressing his knuckles into his eyes, breathing deep and steady to trick himself into calm. It was something he learned to do early on, years ago, but had not had to do for a long time. Since Elizabeth Harmon, he had had to rely on it more and more.

Eventually he found the stillness in himself again and managed to pour himself a shot of vodka without shaking hands. He swallowed it in one go, poured himself another, set up the chess board on the table to replay their game.

He realized, even as he was playing back through, there was no way he could have won against her. This time, at least. His throat constricted as he thought of her, beautiful as she played. He thought about the fact that he would be able to play her again, and again, watch her star rise and eclipse his own, excited to lose to such a marvelous woman.

He gave up on the board and sat, exhausted, thinking what would come after. His wife waited for him in their room, and he wished he felt guilty, wished he felt like going to her. Instead of waiting here for a woman almost half his age that may not even come at all.

Here, in the dark, after it was all over, he finally asked himself: what happens if she does not want me? What happens if, now that I’m vanquished, I become just another man that she’s beaten? An old man, a married man, who has fallen in love with an American woman because he has built her up in his mind like a titan. A woman who challenged him, tactically and emotionally.

He loved his wife, he knew he did, like he knew the sun would rise every morning. He also knew that he was a bad husband, and not just because he was having an emotional affair with Elizabeth Harmon. Chess was everything to him, his life and his purpose, and his wife supported him unfailingly in that, even when it made him neglectful of her and their son. His wife knew what she was marrying into, perhaps, but Elizabeth Harmon understood his drive inherently and wholly.

He was running through the last handful of years at high speed, every time his wife protested his staying out late, every time his wife bit her tongue on the words Elizabeth Harmon, every time he felt the young woman’s presence like a physical force and his wife caught him staring, when someone knocked on the door.

He could feel the blood pulse in his throat, swallowed down his painful heartbeat, mumbled mostly to himself _Come in, save me from myself_ , and when he finally looked up at her, Elizabeth Harmon was standing there before him in nothing but a coat and a silk nightgown. Lit from behind she was his dreams come to life, and he hated the way his body reacted to it, just for a moment, but he smiled at her because more than anything what he felt was relief.

She had come to him. God, but she had come back to him.

After they made love he helped her down off the table and handed her back her surprisingly mundane underwear, and she blushed as she took them. They dressed in silence, backs to one another, individually trying to come to terms with what they had just done together. When they were dressed they faced each other again, her hands pressed together as if she was fighting to reach out, so he slid his into his pants pockets. But they stood so close, only inches between them, and he realized that she was almost as tall as he was. He reached out and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, and her eyes fluttered closed at the hint of a touch. His smile was a grimace, his heart beat hard and fast.

“When do you leave?” he asked her, and she shook her head sharply, reached out to put her hands on his chest. He took them up, held them soft and close.

“Tomorrow afternoon, after things wrap up here,” she said, looking away from him, frustration running rampant in her face. “I can’t stay longer, Mr. Booth - the State Department guy - he’s already mad that I missed my flight tonight.”

“Fuck him,” Vasily said, trying to sound aloof but he was mad, deeply mad, that he would not get to spend more time with Beth Harmon. She laughed, surprised, louder than she meant to, and they both moved away, looked nervously at the door.

“If he finds me in here he’ll think we were passing coded messages or something,” she said, and he knew their time was drawing to a close.

“What kind of messages?” he asked, meaning it to be a joke but he was closing himself off now from whatever mess of feelings he was struggling to contain. She shrugged, reached out and cupped his face, pulled him into a kiss so gently passionate that he wanted to cry out.

When they pulled apart her face was set, almost stern, and responded in kind. She nodded at him, he nodded at her.

“Goodbye, Vasily,” she said.

“Goodbye, Beth,” he replied. “For now.” He hoped, just for now.

She nodded again, and the fire in his stomach quieted some.

“For now,” she agreed, and slipped back through the door.

When he returned to his room it was well past midnight, two or three he guessed but refused to look at a clock. His son was asleep in his own bed, his wife to one side of their shared bed but awake - he could see the hall light gleam in her eyes as she looked at him.

“Did you have fun commiserating?” she whispered with a small smile, but her tone was sad and now, finally, in light of what he had done, he felt sorry for her. Not sorry for himself, he was far past redemption for this particular sin, but for her: he wished he could spare her this pain.

“I was alone,” he sighed, smiling back. “I needed to lick my wounds, as Luchenko would have it.”

She tucked herself under his arm and pressed herself into his side, and they did not speak but he knew she could feel his heart racing, and tried desperately to find peace, at least for now, at least for her.

Their flight back home was quiet, and Vasily thought it was peaceful. Slowly the fear of being caught out in a lie faded from him, and he was sure to hold back any mention of Beth. He had a little time left before he had to start practicing again, for the next competition and next championship, and he tried to fill it with as much of his wife’s time as he could. He wanted her to know that he loved her, and wanted her to be happy, and every time she smiled at him or thanked him for coming back to her, his smile turned to a frown as soon as she turned.

When he lay awake at night, he was thinking of Beth Harmon, and how he had always known she would destroy him. How he had always known he would thank her for it.

BETH

Instead of going home to Lexington, Beth went to New York, to Benny’s apartment. The boys, her boys, were all there, and even Townes joined them as soon as he was done in Moscow. She talked about Vasily to her heart’s content now - now that she had won - but she didn’t mention the other part, the secret part. She thought back on his hands and mouth and eyes, blue eyes, and became lightheaded when she felt him touching her. Benny tried to get her to sleep with him and she blew him off as well as she could. She could tell it hurt his feelings, but she didn’t know what she and Vasily were - nothing, she told herself, nothing yet, maybe nothing ever. But still she could not bring herself to love anyone else right now, laser focused on the Russian, and her own happiness.

Benny and Harry had made her happy briefly as sexual partners, and made her happy still as friends, but she still could recall the difference in feeling between the two of them and Vasily, and while Vasily felt familiar, like home, but dangerous too, Benny and Harry now felt like minor obstacles that were nuisances more than actual challenges.

She wanted to talk to him, was the biggest thing. The thing she didn’t realize would happen. They had spent so much time as silent rivals that as soon as they got on speaking terms it drove her crazy that they could not speak. Any time she improvised an impressive move sequence or found an error in someone else’s game, she laughed with Benny and Harry, she was proud of herself, and always thought after _I wonder if Vasily would be impressed by this_.

She had known she was working towards Borgov her entire career, kept his little worn cut-out in her wallet to remind her of what she was chasing, that she still wanted desperately to win against him and prove her worth as a player (as an orphan and survivor). She still worked her way diligently through any and all competitors in order to grow her own skill and best Vasily again, but instead of thinking _I will beat this man and he will fear me because I have done perfectly_ she thought, _I will beat this man and he will love me, because I have made the game an art_.

She didn’t want to prove anything to him anymore, not like before. Well, maybe only to prove that she could still improve and grow and learn, that she could still be unpredictable and also now be all-knowing. But she didn’t want to do it to make herself worthy, or make others think she was worthy. She wanted to do it for the excitement she felt in Moscow, for his smile, his handshake, his embrace.

For months Beth worked and won and won and won. No matter who she went up against she razed them to the ground and moved closer to her goal. After Moscow it was like she discovered chess again, and with her and Benny and Harry and Townes all working together as a team they became, more or less, a family. As she sat with the three of them after a tournament in Ohio, talking loud and drinking water, she started crying. They were in a cafeteria and people started staring but Townes just wrapped his arm around her and held her close, and she choked out through the sobs that she had never had a family before, and could not imagine losing them now.

She didn’t have to try to get into a tournament that Borgov would be in, that just happened naturally. It was in Venice this time and it was a lot of the same feelings - worry, regret, inadequacy, made more potent by the heady though of his hands on her bare flesh and his mouth setting her on fire. It was such a struggle to keep sober, she wanted to crawl into a hole she had found so familiar rather than risk showing up to Venice and letting Vasily down despite being at the top of her form. Paris, she said to herself, remember Paris?

The first matches she was in were challenging, but still short. She was in a higher division than she had been before - winning in Moscow would do that - and her only real concern was becoming distracted.

Vasily was there, and he had not looked at her once. His wife, as always, was with him, staying closer to him than perhaps she had in the past, and every so often flicked her a tiny, triumphant look. He is not yours, it said. You are a pitiful American girl and nothing more. She could hear the words as if they were spoken aloud, and she could not stop her heart from racing. She tried and tried to get the thought of him out of her mind, tried to think only of the game and the thrill of playing him now that their playing field had been leveled, but her neck and face grew hot every time she felt him move past her, every time she looked at him without a glance in reply. Even before when she was just a random girl he hoped would do well, he would look at her. But now, she was his mistake.

VASILY

Looking away from Beth was harder than he had expected. Watching her, her games, had become natural to him, a thing that one did like a reflex. But he had made a mistake. After months of saying nothing about her, he had mentioned Beth to his wife. Said something about how beautiful she was when she played - it came out of him unbidden, he was not even sure why he said it, but his wife had confronted him and he was chastened.

“Do you think I haven’t seen how you look at her? How she looks at you? I don’t know what is happening, but do not encourage her. She needs to know she has no chance to do whatever it is she wants to do.” He had offered an apology and slunk to his office, breathing hard, not wanting to lie but not wanting to hurt his wife any more than she had already been hurt. One more thing in a long list of his failures. What he wanted to do more than anything was defend Beth Harmon.

She had not started this, not asked for this; this lie required two people, and it was not Beth Harmon that was hurting his wife. It was not a matter of Beth seducing him, or even his own weak will. He wanted this. Her. He was certain that he wanted her.

Eventually though, less through fate than skill no matter what it might have felt like, they were in the final game of the tournament in Venice. He stood beside the table, afraid that he would see a repeat of Paris, but when she came out she stood tall and fierce as ever. When he saw her up close for the first time in months, his breath caught. He looked at her openly, saw that she was taken aback. He wanted to apologize, to explain. He shook her hand only briefly, no lingering, and they played. He looked at the board more than he looked at her but he did look, saw the intelligent movement of her eyes that would catch his own when she made an unusual move, and after an hour they had slipped into a comfortable companionship again, a silent world of knowing looks and acknowledgement of prowess, not sexual or needy but intimate still, knowing one another and anticipating one another well enough that they were matched move for move.

At least, until Beth made a single mistake. He was shocked when he noticed but immediately took advantage of the opening, and even though she was losing after that she was more composed than she had ever been. Playing against one another was like wiping themselves clean of their mistakes, setting them back on even ground, and even when he mated her king she just looked at him, smirking but collected, and he smiled at her, as genuinely pleased with her work as he had been in Moscow.

She took up her king and handed it to him.

No words were spoken but flash bulbs went off loudly around them, and he took it and her hand without hesitation. She nodded shortly at him and then left, him suddenly feeling the absence of her more keenly than her presence. With the king gripped in his fist he turned, and right behind him was his wife. Staring. Smiling but with a secret cold contempt that he knew well, unfortunately. He tried to look as repentant as he could but he still slipped the king into his pocket.

BETH

Beth was shaking when she got back to her room, throwing her clothes onto the floor and going over the game in her head, seeing exactly where she had gone wrong and, for once, being impressed with herself for doing so well for so long. She let herself think about Vasily for only a second, when she realized: now that she had beaten Borgov, now that she knew she could keep trying and trying until she beat him again, losing and learning from loss could be fun. She lay on the bed, spread eagle in only her slip, and smiled. She had done well, even though she had lost. Really well. The difference between her and Borgov now was the matter of a single mistake.

She flinched so hard when the knock came to her door that it hurt, and she threw on her dress again before opening it, and there he was. Vasily - Vasya - looking at her and smiling just a little before looking away, eyes darting around her room and mouth setting into a line as he stood.

Her heart fell through her body and she thought she was in actual pain. He had come to tell her he could never speak to her again. He could never compete against her again. She knew handing him the king would be too much, but the impulse was overwhelming and she did it anyway. She was a creature of habit, and her worst habit was failure. 

She stood back from the door and he hesitated on the threshold just a moment before stepping in, and she closed the door behind them, leaning against the wood. He stood with his back to her, not moving, not seeming to breathe.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the king. He placed it on her dresser, next to the one he gave her, sliding them together until the bases clicked together. They were from different sets and so looked very different, but they were still the same piece. 

He turned in slow degrees, eyes down until he was almost facing her, and she waited for him to speak, but he just looked, and looked, and she stood and let herself be known by him. She looked at him too, all his frown lines and rumpled shirt, and she hoped he saw all her scars, accidental and not.

He moved towards he in slow motion, never looking away, stopped when their bodies were pressed together lightly. It was enough to make her breath catch, enough to make her electric.

He frowned deeply, and stood. She wanted to reach out to him but kept her hands pressed into the door - if either of them were going to act, she wanted him to act first. Wanted there to be no mistake that he wanted this too.

He cleared his throat, tried to speak and failed. He cleared his throat again.

“I’m so sorry for today,” he said, and kissed her.

As soon as their lips touched her hands were on his hips, up his back, around his neck, and his arms were wrapped around her tightly, almost painful but she did not want him to let go.

He pushed away from her and their eyes were locked as he slid down to his knees, sliding her dress up and her underwear down, and his eyes closed as he tasted her for the first time.

Her head pounded with the sensation, pressing him gently into her until he let out a muffled moan that made her knees weak. He tasted her clit with the firm point of his tongue, and when he slid two fingers into her she stopped being able to think. Her body wound tight as he moved, panting, his thumb finding her clit too, and she came hard, biting her lip to stop herself from moaning, pulling his hair to make him stop before it became too much. He looked up at her as she rocked against him, and she looked into his eyes as she finished. He smiled a little open-mouth smile and she slid down to her knees, kissing him, tasting herself, reaching down to feel him, hard under her fingers.

She started unbuttoning his shirt with frantic fingers and he slid out of his pants as she slid him out of his shirt. He took care of the last fragments of clothing and she did the same, and for the first time they saw each other laid completely bare. He was solid, yet soft, muscles standing out in his tense forearms and thighs as he knelt there, and without thinking she leaned forward to press a kiss into his chest, then up, up his neck, then his lips again as he reached out to take her lips, laying down slowly and taking her with him.

She straddled him, raising up enough to guide him inside her, and he pressed down on her hips to go deeper. She was still reeling from before and this new sensation was almost enough to make her scream. She pressed herself down, closed her eyes as his mouth found her nipple, praying that he would keep going all night.

She leaned down and gasped breathy into his neck, heard him groan with need, pressed her lips to his ear and whispered _fuck me, fuck, Vasya_ , and it was enough to push him over the edge, sucking hard at the hollow of her neck as she rode him to finish.

VASILY

He lay next to Beth Harmon on her full-size hotel mattress, and barely had a thought in his head. He was content, if not outright happy, his wife’s voice still ringing somewhere deep but not loudly enough for him to care. He chose this. Was not tricked into this, he wanted this. Wanted her, and for now at least he could join her.

He heard her breathing slow and turned to look at her as she drifted off, seeing every curve of her delicately featured face, hiding the fierce woman that was beneath. He reached over, kissed her as lightly on the cheek as he could manage, but it still woke her, her eyes fluttering open as she breathed deep.

He wanted to speak, wanted to hear her voice more before he had to leave, so he started asking questions he already knew the answer to.

“You learned chess from your janitor, yes? At the orphanage?” His tongue tripped over orphanage, remembering with clarity her troubled past.

She smiled, nodded. “Mr. Shaibel, at Methuen,” she said, looking at the ceiling, and he could see her eyes moving rapidly over her imaginary chess board. “The first time I won against him he got so mad he locked me out of the basement.” She was smiling perhaps more than he had ever seen before, and he was so content to be laying there with her. “He was like a father to me, but I didn’t know that until later.” She reached over him, her chest brushing over his and making him shiver, and found her wallet on the nightstand. She pulled out a little sheaf of pictures.

“My mom, the one who adopted me,” she said, holding out a photo of a familiar woman.

He nodded. “I remember her, from Mexico City,” he said. “I’m sorry I never got to say hello.”

She looked askance at him and shrugged, sliding her photo to the back of the stack. 

“You were busy with other things then,” she said quietly, holding out a picture of an older man and a young girl. “That’s us, the only picture we ever had together.” She held the picture up at arm’s length above her. “He kept this for years. I just found it a year or so ago, before Moscow.” She slid it to the back, and he was looking at his own creased face. His heart beat hard in his throat, choking him.

“I cut this out of a chess magazine that I stole, before my first ever tournament.” She sat up and smiled down at him, and he reached out a hand to rest on her hip. He thought he might cry out.

“You were the best player there was, Vasya,” she said, looking softly as she called him Vasya, and hearing her use of the word was threatened to make him overflow. “I needed a goal, and you were it. If I could beat you, I would be worth something.” She ran a thumb across the creases in the image. “It’s, you know, maybe weird now to keep it. I should throw it away.”

He sat up and cupped her face, pulled her in and kissed her hard until they struggled for breath.

“You are worth everything, Beth Harmon,” he panted. “You are worth everything even if you never play chess again.”

He saw her face crumple, waited for tears, but they never game. She coughed wetly, looked away.

“What about your wife?” she asked finally, and he became still. Let her face go. “Your son? Your reputation? Is this,” she gestured around her, “all worth it? Worth everything?”

She snapped her eyes to his and her gaze bore into him. He was silent, thinking. Trying to come up with an excuse to leave, but even the fact that his wife was waiting for him a few floors below was not enough to make him move. So he spoke without thinking for once.

“The first time I saw you, in Mexico City, that elevator, you remember?” She nodded.

“You called me a survivor,” she whispered.

“You are a survivor, and a force of nature that I can only bow to. You played there, powerful, and I was so thrilled by you, and the game you had the potential to play. I want nothing more than to learn from you, Beth Harmon. This is not an impulsive decision for me, know that. I don’t know what comes next, but I want you to be there, with our without me.” He looked away and found his watch, saw the time.

“I should go,” he said, standing and dressing and trying to feel nothing.

She exhaled slowly, and the bed creaked as she moved to kneel on it, reaching out to wrap her arms around his waist. He brushed her hair from her face, cupped her cheeks, looked down at her as she looked up at him.

“Will you stay?” she asked, and he had to look away. But he held her a little bit more.

“Not yet,” he said, moving away and towards the door. “Eventually, but not yet.”

His wife sat him down at their dining room table, a place he was beginning to dread. It was after Venice, after he had gone back to their shared hotel room and went straight to the shower, brushing his teeth and washing his face two, three times to try to rid himself of her scent. As soon as he lay down beside her she stilled, looked into his eyes, and rolled away from him. He had been miserable. He had tried to keep hold of Beth.

“I can’t do this much longer,” she said in their home, voice raw like she had been crying although he had not seen her tears. Her features were composed, calm as they had ever been, but he felt caught out, exposed, accused. And why not? He deserved it. He thought about deflecting. Then thought of how his wife of so many years deserved better than him.

“I’m sorry for what I’ve done,” he whispered, and this is what made her start crying. Out of habit he went to her, wrapped her in his arms, let her cry against him until she could speak.

“It’s true, then?” she asked.

“Is what true?” he replied.

“You and that girl… That American girl...” She did not need to continue. He swallowed hard, and his silence answered for him.

“You’ve made a fool of me, Vasily,” she hissed, pushing away from him hard, almost tipping herself over in her haste to get away. “I can’t believe you’ve chosen her, that addict, that drunk, over me.”

He put his head in his hands, calmer than he expected until she began to talk about Beth. He reached out and took her hands, this enough to quiet her for a moment.

“She isn’t an addict - isn’t just an addict,” he amended. “She struggles so much with herself, hates herself so deeply…” He looked up at his wife, shamed. Still unable to turn himself away from certain destruction. “I want her to know she is loved,” he rasped, looking into his wife’s eyes.

“You can’t make her feel that without fucking her?” she spat, and he felt the ground fall out from beneath him. Why couldn’t he? he asked himself.

“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully, painfully. 

She cut him off. “I know you’ve been in love with her since Paris, did you know that? The way you obsessed when she lost to you. You couldn’t stop asking about her, talking about her - I’ve been trying to hide this from your son for years, Vasily.”

He realized as she spoke that it was true, and he was not sure how he felt about it. He hadn’t realized it about himself, at least acknowledged it as anything that he could act on, but his wife had watched him linger over Beth for so long and he knew suddenly that he could not redeem himself. Did not deserve to be redeemed.

“I’m taking our son and going to my parents' for a while, Vasily,” she said finally, sounding as tired as she looked. “If you decide you want to give up on the American girl, come talk to me. I might be willing...” she trailed off. Shook her head. She would not be willing to do anything, and they both knew it.

She pushed herself heavily out of the chair and did not look at him as she went upstairs. He did not dare follow her.

After she disappeared he closed himself in his office and started drinking. His world, so stable until now, was crumbling out from under him and there was nothing he could do to prevent it. Could go to his wife and grovel at her feet and hope against hope that she would forgive him, but he did not deserve her forgiveness for this. He thought back on Beth, how he imagined her all these years, as a rival of imminent proportions. How Paris made her human again, and how Moscow made him love her. It had been a slow explosion that had finally come to fruition, and as much as he wanted his stable life, he did not know how to keep it in his grasp.

His wife and son left the next morning, and for days he stayed around his house and waited for bad news. He expected articles about his affair in Chess Review or whatever other paper had a passing fancy in him, or all of their mutual friends to treat him like a leper, but no word came from his wife at all. Eventually the story got out purely because he was not leaving his house at all, but the why was never discovered. He was treated with sympathy, when people realized he was alone now. He hated it more than he hated himself.

BETH

Moscow, again, just the same but so different. Almost a year apart. The same hotel as last time, though a slightly different room. The Russian contingent had the room at the end of the hall for practice, and she saw them at it even before the competition started. She looked towards them as she unlocked her door, and as the lock snapped open Vasily ‘s head snapped up. They saw each other. Both broken in different ways. He nodded to her, and she nodded back. Luchenko saw Vasily’s movement and looked up, then saw her, waved. She smiled, adoring, and waved back. The other man she didn’t know, would know soon enough, then would soundly beat.

She had heard about Vasily’s separation not through the papers but through Townes, who had looked at her closely when he told her, and she had to turn away quick so he didn’t see her blush. This too, though, was an admission. She had no time to focus on that, or on Borgov at all really - Georgi Girev was there again, taking her hand and miming a kiss before they sat down to their game. Just like last time the first day ended in adjournment, and just like last time she could not wait for this boy to destroy all these men. And her, eventually. Maybe.

When he eventually lost he took her hand and kissed it for real, and she laughed loud, making all the players’ heads turn. At the far end of the hall sat Vasily, smirking and trying not to, as he played a Frenchman she didn’t know.

“When I go to America for the next tournament,” Georgi asked, still holding her hand, “I would be honored to take you to a drive-in move.”

She smiled so wide she thought she might never stop. She curtsied, a little flashy one.

“It would be my honor,” she said, and he blushed. She looked at him as he walked away, prideful at his achievements even though she barely knew him. 

She looked back at Vasily and the calm pleasure in his face made her yearn for him.

Her match against Luchenko was harder than their first one a year ago, more complex than either of them expected. Playing against the Russians was when she felt truly challenged - truly seen. To predict your opponent’s moves you need to know your opponent well, and Luchenko was just as good at predicting her as she was him. What started out serious (as chess at this level always was) ended with them smiling, laughing when the other made an inspired move. She still won, of course, but at the end when he resigned, she got up and hugged him, and with a laugh like a Russian Santa he hugged her back tight. When she pulled away she had to wipe away a tear that had not quite finished forming, and Vasily was there beside them, a hand on Luchenko’s shoulder, one slower to arrive and light on her own. She looked at him, there in front of all of those people, and smiled at his smile, and his gentle squeeze as he let go.

When she finally faced Vasily across the board she could feel herself grow calm, content. Whole, maybe, if she believed in being a whole person, and she wasn’t quite sure she did. She was seated when he entered, stood when he reached his seat. Taking hands felt a little like doing the right thing. He tightened his grip and she did in return, and they parted, they sat.

They played.

No adjournment this time, though they still played for hours. They read each other like a native language and Beth had never felt so seen. His face across the board was serene, but she could see the flick of the eye, the tilt of the mouth, that betrayed his excitement. She could read him now, relished it. Played him into a corner in four hours.

He did not offer her a draw - that was before, when losing was frightening and new. Now she knew he would just play her again, both of them climbing upward into each other’s orbit. To adjourn would interrupt the fluid motion they had built up, and neither of them wanted to stop. Their moves became more esoteric, neither doing what the other wanted, until finally, finally, she found her opening.

She moved.

He blocked.

She moved. And she won.

It wasn’t silent like it was before. He did not offer her the game, or the king. It was her game from the beginning, and she did not need to be given it. The crash of the crowd around them was immediate and intense, and this time she stood first, looking around, letting herself revel in it, closing her eyes as the cheering rebounded in the narrow hall.

She opened her eyes and looked for him, found him standing at her elbow. He was looking at her as if with relief, holding out a hand that gripped something tight. His king? She thought, but no, it was still on the board.

She brought her hand up and he placed the piece gently, fingers sliding gently across her palm.

It was her king, from Venice. His smile was small, and soft.

“What is this?” she asked him, squeezing hard, fearing.

“You deserve this win. I deserve nothing except what you give me.”

She swallowed hard, mind racing, fighting against impulse, failing.

With quick movements she pressed the piece back into his palm and reached up, kissed him once, quick. A breath, then he was holding her in, kissing her back.

Silence. Then the sound of flash bulbs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i would like to thank all the people on tumblr for giving me some good ideas for this chapter, and i hope mostly that it's good, and not a terrible disappointment.


	5. Adjournment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An alternate ending, because the first one was only almost perfect

VASILY

She moved.

He blocked.

She moved. And she won.

The cheering for her this time was louder than it was before, not the slow building cheer for a new champion but one that came ready and willing. It’s what people had come to see, what people had come to expect of Beth Harmon, and even as he stood to shake her hand he was pleased that everyone was now recognizing her talents. The expecting, though, made him nervous, for her. Beth needed room to breathe, and expectation very quickly could become suffocating. It was a feeling he knew well and wanted to warn her of, but there was no time. There was never enough time.

Their hands clasped together felt familiar, comforting, and looking at each other after the rush of the game felt a little like after sex. The same kind of tension between two bodies draining out of them, tiredness setting in after being engaged for so long.

This time, though, he did not move in to hug her. His wife was gone from his life too recently and too many of their spectators knew him too well. He was afraid they would see what was between them clear as the written word - whatever it was that bound them together was already thick between them. He smiled at her, though, so proud of her, but when she moved in towards him he stepped almost imperceptibly back, a jerky, unnatural movement. But she saw. She saw him move away and her smile faltered for just a moment before it snapped back into place, and she dropped his hand as if he had burned her, and turned to the crowd.

Vasily wasn’t left alone long enough after that to see Beth, couldn’t make an excuse believable enough to get away from Luchenko, young Girev, the rest of the players, going out for a celebratory last-game meal. Girev invited Beth but she declined, claiming tiredness, and who could blame her for that? His chest hurt like a clenched fist when she turned away from him a second time, and he watched her as she left. He thought about all the times he had watched her walk away from him, how his wife’s turned back had reminded him so much of her because of it. The crowd around him started moving, but it wasn’t until Luchenko touched his elbow that he was brought back to himself, and the older man’s concern showed deeply in the lines around his eyes. Vasily looked away slowly and sniffed, joining the rest of the crowd.

The dinner was long - they always were - and he was put at the head of the table, their crowning glory brought low once again by the American woman. There were jokes about his loss, about being unseated by the incomparable Elizabeth Harmon, but he couldn’t make himself laugh with them. 

“The man needs a rest,” Luchenko said eventually, waving them all away, and they let him eat in relative peace, and he let them believe it was just because of his wife.

Dinner was finally - mercifully - over, but he was still not left alone. Luchenko and Girev joined him in their practice room, set up the board and replayed his game, adding this bit of information to the other bits of information they had about Elizabeth Harmon.

But Beth, they did not know. He limply held a glass half-full of vodka (he wished it was more, wished to drink and drink) and pressed the fingers of his free hand hard into his closed eyes, rubbing at the itch that had set in from exhaustion. They didn’t actually know how hard she worked and how beautiful she was, they knew her stubbornness and pride but not her curiosity or her ability to grow and learn. They did not know how soft she was to touch and kiss and make love to, and a sudden tension ran through his whole body, and his fingers hurt from the cold air.

“Georgi, head to bed, your parents will be waiting,” he heard Luchenko say softly as the thrum of his nerves quieted back down. He wondered if he had flinched from the pain, if they had seen. It felt like his heart was seizing. He pressed the glass to the left side of his chest and offered the boy a small wave as he closed the door behind himself.

Luchenko sat down beside him on that couch, the couch where Vasily had first touched Beth Harmon, and looked at him for a long time before speaking.

“It’s the girl, isn’t it?” he said in the same soft voice. Years ago, a lifetime ago, Vasily had been surprised at how soft spoken the man was. Now it was just a reliable, comforting tone. He was not comforted by the question. He finally raised his eyes to meet the old man’s. He nodded. Looked back down.

“The reason your wife left you?” Another nod.

He was shaking his head like a wet dog, then his jaw clenched and his fists clenched, and he was glad the room was mostly dark now.

“I want to go to her,” he said, afraid to say it out loud, needing to tell someone. “I want to go to her and tell her how proud I am, tell her-” He sniffed loudly, dismissively. Tell her that I see all her darkest parts and know them, he wanted to say but couldn’t quite, to Luchenko.

“How long have you loved her?” Luchenko asked him, cutting to the bone of the question with a single sentence.

“Since Paris. My wife says she noticed in Paris, but it may have been earlier. Mexico City.”

Luchenko nodded, gave Vasily the space to sit up and stretch, exhaustion settling on him like a dark cloud, leaving no space for heavy emotions.

“Your wife is a strong woman,” Luchenko said, standing to retrieve the bottle of Vodka, pouring two fresh glasses. “She’s put up with a lot from you over the years. Even before Elizabeth.” 

He looked at Luchenko and felt deep pain at that, knew it was true but didn’t want to confront it or discuss it with anyone that wasn’t his own wife. His lip twitched involuntarily and he pressed the cold glass to his mouth to stop the movement. He nodded, looked away. Drained his glass in one swallow.

“If I betray my wife like this, what does that mean for me?” he asked aloud, not really expecting an answer.

“You’ve already betrayed your wife,” Luchenko replied, “for the American girl.”

“I just want her to know she’s loved.” He repeated the words he had told his wife, and knew that was the core of what he had done. “The world broke her, Luchenko, and she thinks that’s the way the world is. The way she’s meant to be. And I just want to hold her together so she knows there’s another way.” And she was beautiful, deeply beautiful, though he was in love with her before he even knew that.

Luchenko looked at him again for a long moment, then pointed to the door with his now-empty glass.

“If you’re going to see her anyway, you might as well go do it,” he said, and the blood was rushing in Vasily’s ears.

BETH

Borgov stepping away from her after her victory was like a shotgun going off right beside her, then everything was ringing and she couldn’t hear the crowd. She let go of him, didn’t want to but made herself if that was what he wanted, turned to the crowd, forced herself to smile. She hated the politeness of smiling but it was the only thing she had now to keep herself from shattering in front of all of these people, and that would be more than she could handle.

The reporters were thick in the entryway to the building, and she knew already that Townes wasn’t there. None of the people that had helped her in the States were with her - either time or money kept them from being able to come. She hadn’t made a fuss about it because she knew she would see Vasily, comfortable on his home turf like he never was in the US, or this last time in Venice. And she had seen him. And he had stepped away from her.

Her heart beat so hard in her throat that she was afraid her refusal of Georgi’s dinner invitation was going to sound thick and sad, but it didn’t, or at least nobody said anything. She peeled off from the crowd, back to her room, the heat on the back of her neck meaning he was looking at her but she could not look back.

When she got back to her room she threw her coat and hat and scarf off as hard as she could, hat knocking the lamp on the side table hard enough to topple it, and she scrambled to right it, to make sure it didn’t break. She sat on the edge of her bed with her elbows on her knees, hands clasped hard until her bones ached through the skin.

With sudden panic she remembered the king, his king, sitting right on the edge of the side table and now nowhere to be found. She shook out her coat so hard it snapped like a flag, rooted around under her bed until she found it in the dark. It was just a little dusty, and she wiped it off with her thumb, remembering feeling him beneath her fingers. She placed it back in its spot with shaking hands, resuming her post at the edge of her bed.

She was thinking about drinking. She was thinking about drugs. Could you get weed in Moscow? She was unsure, hadn’t thought to ask before now. She was going to stay sober, she had promised herself, and in promising herself promised him. Vasya. Thinking of him now made her feel inside out.

Quickly, without making an active decision, she went to the door and cracked it open just a bit. She looked down the hall both ways, spotted what she wanted - a bottle of champagne in a bucket sitting a few doors down from her. She could have called down for a bottle but her State Department man (not Booth, so she didn’t bother to learn his name. He was not as amused by her fame here as Booth had been) had told her not to use the phone unless someone called for her. She wasn’t sure how serious a threat this was, but she didn’t want to chance it. Instead, she chanced theft.

She slipped down the hall as quietly as she could, happy that the carpeted hallway was plush and not prone to echoing. Without stopping she grabbed the bucket with one hand and the bottle with the other, walking fluidly as she could back to her room and closing the door, not hearing anyone in the hall behind her, not hearing anything like shouting or accusations.

She tried not to think as she peeled the foil off the top, thinking about how many times she had cut her fingers on that foil before she became adept enough at peeling it all off in one go. The wire cage was stiffer than she was accustomed to, but she got it off and flung it to the wall, one hand pressed down on the cork. She thought about her promise. Thought about his promise to her: 

“Will you stay?” she had asked.

“Eventually,” he had replied. “But not yet.”

With a single step back from her, the possibility of eventually had faded from her mind. She gripped the cork tight as she pulled so it didn’t fling itself away, held it so tight in her hand as she poured the first bits of foam into her mouth that she thought she might demolish it. Champagne wasn’t enough to get her as drunk as she wanted, but she drank it as quickly as she could to help it along, halfway down before she had to stop for breath. There would be other bottles out in the hall, there would be-

There was a knock at the door. Trying to be quiet but not quite managing. She stood in the middle of her room like a rabbit ready to flee.

“Beth,” Vasily said, muffled by the door, and she was there in two steps, door flung open.

He looked tired, and sad, red around the eyes. For a moment he was stuck on the other side of the door. He looked at the bottle in her hand and she shifted her body sideways, trying to hide it, and that made him step in close. She didn’t move, wanted to yell and cry but wanting, more than anything, him.

He reached around her and took the bottle, brushing against her, and as he slid the bottle across the table he was already kissing her, pressing her back into the bed, and she was holding his head, smelling his faint vodka scent and for just a moment wished she was drinking.

They broke apart just long enough to undress, then he was on top of her, holding her arms above her with one firm hand, stretching her body out, and she let herself be seen. His free hand moved in slow motion across her stomach, to her hip, and she was already aroused, angry about it. She wanted to hold a grudge, worried that she couldn’t.

“Why’d you do it?” she whispered, biting off the words.

The way he looked at her felt like she was falling. Sadness, regret, eyes flicking over her face like he knew she was feeling that too. He shook his head, smiled that small, sad smile.

“Because I’m a coward, Beth Harmon, and I regret every second since then,” he replied, and she reached herself up as high as she could go to kiss him, and he met her halfway. He held her, stretched out, and kissed down her neck, her breast, her stomach, each touch an apology that she accepted without question.

Who wasn’t a coward, really? She was, she knew it, it ate away at her insides like the fear, the guilt, the inadequacy. The Vasily Borgov she had built up in her head was immune to those emotions, but Vasya, her Vasya, knew her and trusted her more thoroughly than she did herself. Trusted her to grow and change, and wanted to mend whatever was broken in her, and she wanted that trust, wanted to prove him right.

She strained against the hand holding her arms and he let go instantly, looking at her, making sure she was okay, and she gently pushed him up until he was sitting, and she was straddling him. She guided him into her and he gasped when they met, and they found their rhythm together even though it was still new to them.

Later - she didn’t know how much later - he lay sleeping beside her, no longer tense, his hand resting on her thigh like it comforted him to know she was there. There was no forgiveness to be found, no forgiveness necessary. She could not look away from him, wanted so badly to say I love you but keeping the impulse in check, the words sitting right behind her teeth. 

She kept thinking about tomorrow, what would happen when they woke up. The thought of him stepping away from her again rang inside her, but she drowned it out with the other, kinder thought: he had come back to her. And this time, he had stayed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont know if it's better, but i hope it's not worse

**Author's Note:**

> i'm an absolute monster for age gaps and hot people, thank you and good night


End file.
